In Memoriam
by RPGgirl514
Summary: There is a place within the tunnels of Cheyenne Mountain all base personnel know about, but most try to forget.


Jonas Quinn throws his hands up in the air. He's lost. He wonders if he'll ever be able to travel through this rabbit warren without losing his way. Just this morning he had made it from his quarters to the "mess hall" (which he thought was a rather strange term for the room in which one ate) without getting lost once. He's pretty sure he turned left instead of right at a critical juncture and now he is in a part of the base where the lights are dimmed to save energy. Clearly this wing is not heavily used. He's given up hope of finding someone to ask for directions and is about to turn back and bumble his way through into a more populated area when he hears a woman's voice. Relief floods him. It's embarrassing, this need to ask for directions, but at least he is still new enough to the base that it's tolerated with a knowing smile and only mild suspicion.

Jonas rounds the corner into a long corridor that does not branch and leads to a dead end. It's dim like the rest of this wing, but there is no mistaking the blonde head of the woman further down the hallway, near the end. She is on her knees. Her head is bowed. A large black flag stretches across the wall, draped with somber elegance. Clustered candles in enclosed jars flicker before the kneeling woman, throwing red and blue shards of light across her features. Jonas quickens his pace.

"Major Carter?"

Sam jumps at the sound of his voice and hastily rubs away tears, her face turned away from him. She braces her hands on her knees and stands up to greet him.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to intrude. I . . . got lost again." Sam smiles - she's been teasing him mercilessly about his difficulties adjusting to base life since he arrived. He's grateful to her for it; it's made things more bearable, and she knows it.

"It's alright. I can walk with you -" But Jonas is no longer listening. Instead he is studying the wall to his left. It is constructed of a different material from the rest of the hallway - a type of alien metal. He lays his hand on it. It is warm to the touch. Stargate team numbers are engraved into the surface, followed by names. Jonas' eyes fall to where Sam had been.

 _SG-1  
_ _Dr. Daniel Jackson (2002)_

"What is this place?" he asks.

"It's a memorial," she says. "For those killed or missing in action while working for the Stargate program."

He wants to comfort her, but this is just too new and fresh and messy, so he settles for gripping her shoulder. Carter flinches, then accepts the gesture for what it is: an admission of guilt. And it would be so easy just to blame Jonas for Daniel's death. Too easy, in fact; the Langaran scientist is all too willing to shoulder it himself.

"No one here blames you, Jonas," she says in a tight voice.

He scoffs. "Colonel O'Neill doesn't?"

Carter offers up a grimace and a shrug. "Colonel O'Neill doesn't like change. Look, Jack and Daniel were close - we all were. He'll come around. Give it time."

"Meanwhile I'm stuck on base being useless while he makes up his mind," Jonas mutters. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound ungrateful - not after what you've done for me. What Dr. Jackson did for me." He turns his gaze back toward the memorial, looking at it more closely.

There are pressed metal tags hanging from pegs inserted into names. The sheer expanse of the wall unsettles Jonas.

"How long has your Stargate program been in operation?" he asks.

"A little over five years," she says.

"There are so many of them."

Sam looks like she might crumble again. "I knew almost all of them, though only a handful well."

Jonas runs a finger over the title _Base Personnel_ , which is separated into enlisted, commissioned, and civilian personnel. "I thought the most dangerous part of the program was going off-world. How have so many died here?"

"We've had a few incursions by the Goa'uld," Sam admits. "There was a foothold situation that got out of hand, a contagion brought back through the gate . . ." She shrugs. "We knew the risks."

Jonas considers the wall. "I'd expect such a memorial to be more prominent in the base."

Sam shrugs. "Some would rather forget."

"But not you."

"No," Sam says. "Forgetting them means forgetting their sacrifice. We've all given up things to be here. How many more people will be added to this wall? How many more I - know?" Her voice catches on the last word, as though she'd had another on her tongue and changed her mind at the last second. "I'm sorry, Jonas. This isn't your fight. You've given up a lot to be here too."

"I'd do it again, you know," he says. "For Dr. Jackson. I won't forget."

Sam smiles. "Thanks, Jonas. I guess that's their legacy, right? Leaving a part of themselves behind in us. Making us better people for it. It's what we have to hold on to them." She runs her fingers over Daniel's name one last time. "Come on. I'll walk you back."

Together they leave the way they came, the candles keeping their flickering vigil. A being lingers long after they leave, human in form, though made of light and shadow rather than blood and bone.


End file.
